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Do you have increasing rates of worker turnover in your workplace?
When someone leaves your organization, is there a loss of knowledge that leads to reduced productivity?
Are you experiencing increased workload to train new hires?
You’re not alone!
Just like hydropower’s evolving role in the grid, the hydropower workforce is also changing. With increasing rates of retirement and worker turnover, organizations are at a greater risk of losing knowledge that is essential to their operations.
The loss of organizational knowledge can create significant financial and operational disruptions, potentially leading to staff burnout and further worker turnover. Many workers leave organizations because they don’t see a clear path to grow their career.
By understanding knowledge loss, as well as the tools designed to address it, organizations can formulate strategies to preserve critical information while ensuring the next generation of employees has strong foundations for lifelong careers.
WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE LOSS?
How do organizations lose knowledge? Knowledge loss can occur when critical knowledge is tied to an individual and not well documented. When these individuals leave organizations, the organizations can be left scrambling to fill the gaps. This disruption is worsened by the fact that it can take several years to train a new hire to fill the shoes of their predecessor.
Knowledge loss can increase pressure on existing employees and, in some cases, cause organizations to contact retired staff because they are the only source of the knowledge needed to do the job. These burdens could be avoided through a strong culture of documentation and knowledge sharing.
Succession planning—or the process used to identify critical positions in the organization and to prepare an internal talent pipeline to fill those positions when they become available—is another key component to a resilient workforce. Succession planning is a close cousin of knowledge sharing, which can also help improve staff retention by providing career progression opportunities within the organization.
Knowledge loss isn’t just a problem for the Human Resources professionals in an organization. Anyone that hires, fires, or trains staff can take steps to improve an organization’s knowledge sharing practices and culture and can work to lessen the impact of turnover and worker loss on existing employees.
Any level of management can create a culture that values knowledge sharing and can implement practices that will contribute to knowledge sharing and succession planning. Any staff member can take steps to document and share key knowledge associated with their job to help maintain continuity while they are out of the office or when they move to another position.
HELP STRENGTHEN OUR WATER POWER WORKFORCE
What can you do to make your workforce more resilient? The following resources developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office can help:
- Check out the new Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit, which provides access to tools and resources that you can use to evaluate the risk of knowledge loss, adopt succession planning strategies, and support a culture of knowledge sharing in your organization.
- Learn more about U.S. hydropower workforce trends in the Hydropower Workforce Report, which shares findings from NREL and the Hydropower Foundation’s 6 years of research. The report provides a snapshot of the industry from the perspectives of academia, students, and industry and emphasizes the importance of strengthening the hydropower workforce pipeline, the industry’s response to worker retirement and loss, and the need for the hydropower industry to raise its visibility to job seekers.
- Help spread the word about hydropower and marine energy! Resources related to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), such as the STEM for Hydropower Portal and STEM for Marine Energy Portal, provide credible information on the water power industry to help attract and inspire the next generation of workers. From curricula and training materials to career profiles, networking, and career-building resources to prize and competition information and tours, there are a wide range of resources you can share to raise the visibility of water power in your network.
NEXT STEPS
We all play a small part in supporting the operational health of our organizations as well as water power’s essential role in the renewable energy mixture.
Are you motivated to strengthen the hydropower workforce? Check out the Knowledge Sharing and Succession Planning Toolkit, and tell us what you think by emailing Adam.Kanter@nrel.gov.
